Parkhomivka

It is a village (802 residents) in Volo-darsky Region, on the right bank of Tarhan River. It was founded in the mid-l6th ?., and in three centuries it became the property of known engineer of ways of communication, councilor V. Holubev. After his death in 1903 his heirs decided to perpetuate father's memory and build a church. Architect V. Pokrovsky designed and built it, for which he was later awarded the title of academician of architecture. Building of the Church of the Patronage on a knoll near the pond was completed in 1908. In an added chapel they later reburied the ashes of V. Holubev. The enormous and majestic temple exceeds the proportions of a small village; it is executed in the best traditions of Russian architecture of the turn of 19th and 20th c. The plasticity of its composition is successfully underlined with expressive decorations and works of monumental art. The frescoes (artist V. Perminov) and mosaics (executed in the workshop of V. Frolov in Petersburg) were done after the sketches of M. Rerikh. The main facade mosaics of the church ("Patronage") and chapel ("The Holy Face") underline the unity of composition and style of the Church of the Patronage. In Soviet years the church was used as a utility room. During the per-estroika R. Gorbacheva—the wife of the last leader of the USSR—initiated the restoration of the church; not far away from its fence the monument to V. Holubev was erected Early in the 1990s the Church of the Patronage was rededicated and reopened.